Q. Consider the following statements about the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act: - It mandates the purchase and sale of agricultural commodities in government-regulated
- It aims to promote the development of contract farming for the farmers
Which of the above statements is/are correct?
Answer:
Both 1 & 2
Notes: The APMC was constituted to prevent and to protect farmers from exploitation from intermediaries, traders and timely payment of their produce through auctions in the APMC area. It mandates the purchase and sale of agricultural commodities through government regulated mandis. As per this act, the agricultural produce can be traded through APMCs only and there is a restriction on the farmer from entering into direct contract with any processor/ manufacturer/ bulk processor. This has resulted in multiple levels of brokers and farmers are unable to get fair prices. This monopoly has restricted the development of a competitive marketing system providing no help to farmers in direct marketing, organizing retailing, a smooth raw material supply to agro-processing industries and adoption of innovative marketing system and technologies. To cope up with the problem, the Agriculture Ministry has drafted a model called “The Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2017, which provides for progressive agricultural marketing reforms, including setting up markets in private sector, direct marketing, farmer-consumer markets, de-regulation of fruits and vegetables, e-trading, single point levy of market fee, issue of unified single trading license in the State, declaring warehouses/silos/cold storage as market sub-yards and Market Yards of National Importance (MNI) so that more markets are available for farmers to sell their produce for better prices.